Writer/Director Najwa Najjar BA in PolSc/Econ, MA in Film. She has worked in both documentary and fiction since 2000. Her critically acclaimed debut was the feature film “Pomegranates and Myrrh” (2009). Her second award winning feature film, “Eyes of a Thief” (2014), won Best Director and Best Actor awards, among many others, and was the Palestinian nomination for the 2015 Oscars Best Foreign Film and the Golden Globe Awards.

Previous work include several award-winning films also shown in festivals worldwide, including Berlin, Cannes, Locarno and Hamptons: “Yasmine Tughani” (2006), “Naim and Wade’a” (2000), “Quintessence of Oblivion” (2001), “Blue Gold” (2004), “A Boy Called Mohamad” (2002) and “They Came from the East,” which opened the 2004 European Academy Awards. Najjar produced a collection of short films by international filmmakers called “Gaza Winter” (2009). She is currently in preproduction on her third feature film, a road trip: “Son of a Very Important Man.”

A speaker on numerous panels on cinema and a Jury member of several International Film Festivals, she recently gave a Director’s Masterclass at Galway Film Festival 2016. Najjar has been a reader for the Rawi Sundance Lab for Arab scriptwriters and has been an advisor for the Rawi Sundance Scriptwriters Lab for the past two years.